The present inventor has the following patents which disclose machines of this general type and features which relate to such machines:
______________________________________ U.S. Pat. No. 5,222,933 Issued December 13, 1994 U.S. Pat. No. 5,338,284 Issued August 16, 1994 U.S. Pat. No. 5,586,965 Issued December 24, 1996 U.S. Pat. No. 5,601,523 Issued February 11, 1997 U.S. Pat. No. 5,601,524 Issued February 11, 1997 U.S. Pat. No. 4,608,040 Issued August 26, 1986 PCT 5,586,965 Published January 30, 1997 ______________________________________
In addition to the above patents of the present inventor, the following patents by other inventors show machines and features of a similar nature:
______________________________________ McAllister U.S. Pat. No. 5,462,513 December 31, 1995 Classicon UK 2,133,722 August 1, 1984 Burnell U.S. Pat. No. 4,981,219 January 1, 1991 MacNicol Australia 1,748,7/34 May 8, 1934 Australia 22055/35 April 2, 1935 MacIssaac U.S. Pat. No. 1,882,389 October 11, 1932 Loison U.S. Pat. No. 3,823,869 July 16, 1974 Telle DT 1,632,324 October 29, 1970 ______________________________________
Knelson 284 discloses a machine of this general type which is intended to operate continuously in the sense that the feed slurry is supplied continuously to the centrifuge bowl while the discharge of heavier materials collected on the wall of the bowl is effected intermittently using a pinch valve at each discharge opening.
Knelson 523, 524, 965 and the PCT disclose improvements in the above machine all of which have contributed to an improved functional machine.
Knelson 933 discloses a batch machine which operates intermittently and must be halted regularly for the collection of the heavier materials through a discharge opening at the base of the bowl. There is no continuous discharge of the heavier materials through discharge openings and the heavier materials is therefore collected in the bowl for intermittent or batch processing.
Knelson 040 discloses a particular arrangement of the fluidizing injection openings which are conventional in an arrangement of this type.
McAllister discloses a continuous discharge machine which also uses pinch valves at a series of discharge openings around a collection zone of the bowl.
MacNicol in the old two Australian patents discloses a particular bowl arrangement with injection openings at the base of a series of axially spaced riffles for collection of materials of the batch processing within the riffles.
Telle discloses a de-watering system for extracting water from particulate materials in which the particulate materials are collected on the wall of a centrifuge bowl and discharged outwardly through discharge ducts each of which has a pinch valve for controlling the discharge of the particulate materials. De-watering systems are of a different type from the particulate separation machines with which the present invention is concerned.
MacIssaac discloses a machine for separating particulate materials in which the heavier materials are collected on the wall of the bowl and intermittently discharged by opening valves located inside the bowl.
Classicon discloses a separation system for different particulate materials in which there are series of actually spaced discharged outlets each of which can be opened and closed by a valve arrangements.
Loison discloses a de-watering device for separating liquid from a solid in which the solids are collected outwardly of the bowl and are discharged by periodically opening a valve arrangement.
Burnell discloses an apparatus for separating different particles including a series of angularly spaced pockets each of which converges to a discharge duct through which the heavier materials are discharged on a continuous basis.